No shortage of page turners for Irish Book Awards shortlist
Now in its 11th year, the shortlist features a diverse list of authors across 14 categories, including Novel of the Year, Children’s, Cookery, Crime Fiction, Popular Fiction, Nonfiction, Sports, Short Story, and Poetry.
Hundreds of books were submitted for consideration this year and the public are now being asked to cast their votes on the best books of the year online at bgeirishbookawards.ie.
Votes may be cast until midnight on November 11 and the winners will be announced at the awards ceremony in Dublin’s Double Tree by Hilton Hotel on November 16.
Commenting on this year’s shortlist awards chairperson Larry McHale said the judging panel was delighted with the quality of writing displayed on the shortlist.
“As the flagship event for the Irish book industry, the overriding motivation behind the awards is to celebrate the extraordinary quality of Irish writing, to help bring the best books to a wider readership annually, and to promote an industry under severe competitive pressure,” he said.
Managing director at Bord Gáis Energy Dave Kirwan said that the awards were now widely regarded as the highlight of the Irish literary calendar.
“Year after year, the shortlist features an impressively high standard of Irish writers, and this year is no different.
“I’d like to congratulate all this year’s shortlisted authors and publishers and wish the very best of luck to each and every one,” he said.
Selected titles from the shortlist
- All We Shall Know – Donal Ryan
- Days Without End – Sebastian Barry
- Solar Bones – Mike McCormack
- The Lesser Bohemians – Eimear McBride
- The Wonder – Emma Donoghue
- This Must Be The Place – Maggie O’Farrel
- I Read The News Today, Oh Boy – Paul Howard
- Ireland The Autobiography – John Bowman
- The Hurley Maker’s Son – Patrick Deeley
- The Supreme Court – Ruadhán Mac Cormaic
- Time Pieces: A Dublin Memoir – John Banville & Paul Joyce
- When Ideas Matter – Michael D Higgins
- A Child of Books – Sam Winston and Oliver Jeffers
- Goodnight Everyone – Chris Haughton
- Historopedia – Fatti & John Burke
- Pigín of Howth – Kathleen Watkins
- Rabbit and Bear: Rabbit’s Bad Habits – Julian Gough & Jim Field
- Rover and the Big Fat Baby – Roddy Doyle
- Knights of the Borrowed Dark – Dave Rudden
- The Book of Shadows – ER Murray
- The Making of Mollie – Anna Carey
- Needlework – Deirdre Sullivan
- Nothing Tastes As Good – Claire Hennessy
- Flawed – Cecelia Ahern
- Blood, Sweat & McAteer – Jason McAteer
- Coolmore Stud, Ireland’s Greatest Sporting Success Story – Alan Conway
- My Life in Rugby – Donal Lenihan
- Out of Control – Cathal McCarron
- The Battle – Paul O’Connell
- Win or Learn – John Kavanagh
Full shortlist can be found at bgeirishbookawards.ie
Booker Prize
A US novel described as “a searing satire on race relations” is this year’s winner of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction.
‘The Sellout’, written by 54 year old Paul Beatty, was described by The New York Times as a ‘metaphorical multicultural pot almost too hot to touch’.
Paul Beatty becomes first US author to win @ManBookerPrize, worth £50,000https://t.co/1zK3POupnf https://t.co/W7tgrVEnNF
— BBC Breaking News (@BBCBreaking) October 25, 2016
It examines race and violence in contemporary America against the background of family drama and a fatal police shooting.
This is the first time that a US author has won the £50,000 prize in the 48 years of the Man Booker.
US authors became eligible to win the coveted prize in 2014.
The 2016 shortlist included two British, two US, one Canadian and one British-Canadian writer.
The book is narrated by African-American ‘Bonbon’, a resident of the run-down town of Dickens in Los Angeles county, which has been removed from the map to save California from embarrassment.
Bonbon is being tried in the Supreme Court for attempting to re-institute slavery and segregation in the local high school as means of bringing about civic order.
Announcing the winner at a black-tie event at London’s Guildhall, chair of the 2016 judges, Amanda Foreman said: “The Sellout is a novel for our times.
“A tirelessly inventive modern satire, its humour disguises a radical seriousness. Paul Beatty slays sacred cows with abandon and takes aim at racial and political taboos with wit, verve and a snarl.”
Previous winners include Salman Rushdie, Margaret Atwood, Iris Murdoch and JM Coetzee.
The 2016 Shortlist included Deborah Levy’s ‘ Hot Milk’ Graeme Macrae Burnet’s ‘His Bloody Project’, Ottessa Moshfegh’s ‘ Eileen’, David Szalay’s ‘All That Man Is’ and Madeline Thien’s ‘Do Not Say We Have Nothing’.
